


remember brooklyn now

by orphan_account



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Best Friends, Drinking, HAVE I MENTIONED theyre dumb, M/M, Other, Unrequited Love, canon dumbasses, drunk dumbasses forced to admit that they're friends, god this entire fic radiates no homo energy i hate it, i hate the mcu why did i write this, i love you but everyone hates you, sorry new jersey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-11 00:03:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20144212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: They’ve both stopped at this point. These are uncharted waters for the two of them - they each lost their best friend, and they’ve only just started to learn how to be that for each other, and it’s this huge, long battle upstream. Sam thinks they might be the salmon lost along the way, but he really, really hopes that they aren’t.





	remember brooklyn now

**Author's Note:**

> title is from lifeline by MELVV

“remember when you said that we would last a lifetime,

but now i find myself just looking for a lifeline.

all the words we said are dancing ‘round in my head,

and i can't stop - stop thinking.”

\- __lifeline, MELVV__

It’s been a long day.

Sam’s wings decided, mid-mission, that it would be a _ terrific _ idea to critically malfunction, causing him to fall face first into the dirt, breaking his nose. Bucky didn’t have much luck either, what with the magnets this dude was using and the metal arm and all.

“Bar?” Sam asks after they’ve showered back at his place, because Bucky’s too emotionally attached to Brooklyn to get an apartment anywhere else, but Bucky’s also too broke to afford a place in Brooklyn.

“Please.”

Walking in this city at night - it always feels sort of surreal to Sam. Like, somewhere there are people waking up right next to people who are trying to fall asleep, people falling in and out of love for the first and last times of their lives without ever knowing it, people who are cold and who are warm, people who are hungry and people who are full, and he’s fought for every single one of them. 

And they probably don’t even know his name.

The entirety of the time that Sam’s known him, Bucky’s never been one for the social scene. He and Steve used to reminisce about the good ol’ days, back when “Buck” had every gal wrapped around his pinky finger with a little red ribbon, but he’s different now. Heavier. 

Bucky’s walking a couple steps in front of Sam. He’s not wearing a jacket, just letting the cool breeze hit his skin. Sometimes, Sam thinks, that that’s how Bucky deals with the weight. He just lets it pass on by, biting him in the breeze one second, gone the next, returning whenever the weather deems it so.

“Here?” Bucky stops abruptly and points to some bougie place across the street, string lights adorning the small entryway of what Sam thinks _ used _ to be a house.

“It’s probably expensive as shit, but why not,” Sam glares at his coworker, “You’re paying, drifter.”

“Alright, kid,” Sam can hear the smile in Bucky’s voice as he jaywalks, not even bothering to look both ways.

-

So, apparently these hipsters can fucking _ drink_.

Sam is two bottles into some weird apple cider with a condescending fox on it, and he is rightfully on his way to being shitfaced. 

Bucky has a high constitution, being a supersoldier, and he is seven pints into his tab and _ actually shitfaced_, and he’s singing along to some sad indie song about a blonde on the radio.

“Can you hear the bumblebees swarm? Watching your arm, I love it when you look my way!” He’s laughing, holding onto Sam for dear life so he doesn’t fall off the stool, and all the vowels in his speech are longer than the Great Wall of China.

“Alrighty Bucky, time to settle down,” Sam puts down his cider, and it takes all of his composure to be able to stabilize Bucky.

“Truth or dare,” He giggles into his glass, golden liquid spilling out onto the floor.

“Truth,” Sam says. He’s not getting up right now.

“What is… The craziest thing you’ve done because you were in love.”

Sam chuckles, “Weirdo. I think I might have taken a train to Jersey for a girl once,”

“Wow,” Bucky stares in drunken disbelief. “That’s love.”

“What about you?” 

“That’s not how the game works, kid.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Fine. Truth or dare?”

“Dare”

“I _ dare _you to tell me the craziest thing you’ve ever done because you were in love.”

“Fuck.”

Bucky chugs the remainder of his beer, and damn near falls off the barstool in the process.

“Alright, okay, that’s enou-”

“Sir? Could I get another one of these over here?” Bucky yells over at the bartender.

“Sir do _ not _get him another beer he is officially being cut off” Sam looks at Bucky, more confused than he’s ever been about the man, and that’s saying something considering this person unwillingly murdered over sixty people.

“What the _ fuck _ was that?” 

“Sorry it’s just - I don’t like talking about love and, and,” Bucky gestures weakly into the air. “And shit.” He’s looking down at the ground now, having a thumb war with himself.

“You know I’m not going to judge you for what you did with some dame back in the old days, right?” Sam moves Bucky’s empty glass as far away from him as possible, and lightly kicks the leg of his stool. “So? Out with it. I wanna hear your 1940s rom-com ending.”

Buck looks up, this wistful smile playing on his lips.

“A, a couple years back, the strangest thing happened. Someone recognized me while I was on duty. He looked me in the eyes and said my name - not James, no not what’s on my birth certificate or in all the museums and all those stupid books - Bucky. Bucky Barnes of Brooklyn, that_ dumb kid _ who died in that _ dumb war _ . Did I recognize the guy who said my name? No, but I _ knew _ him. I knew him like the back of my hand, like all the small places only a kid could know from back home, places that have been gone for decades now. I was with that scrawny boy ‘till the end of the line.

But now he’s old and gray, finally looks our age” Bucky rests his head in his hand, looking out the window on the far wall at the rest of the city like a damsel in a romantic novel waiting for her betrothed to come back from the war, and it’s oddly fitting. “His string is gonna break and fray before either of ours - and it fucking hurts, because he won’t be with me till the end of my line, and he said he would, he said he would up in that fucking hellicarrier all those fucking years ago.”

Sam Wilson has seen a great many things - he has seen Captain America beaten black and blue, iron wine spilling from his wounds, he saw Tony Stark die in the arms of the ones he loved, face caved in and still smiling, he saw _ the _Black Widow fight while she was alive, but until this very second, he has never seen the Winter Soldier cry.

“I know it’s petty, and, I know I shouldn’t be mad, but it’s just -” Bucky lets out a sob, and Sam thinks he might have finally reached that small kid from Brooklyn that’s inside Bucky - just not the way he thought he would.

“C’mere,” Sam gets up off the stool and tugs Bucky’s shirt, getting him to stand up and follow. “Let’s get you home.”

“Home’s Brooklyn, Sam”

“Yours, not mine.”

There’s a beat of silence, the words Bucky said are hanging in the air as they walk, side by side, their feet creating a solid rhythm, rubber against pavement, stars against the city.

“Why didn’t you ever tell him?”

“Because then he’d know.”

“And that would be bad because?”

Bucky stops in his tracks. “Because we grew up in the 30’s. Because I’ve have ears, and they’ve heard him wax poetic about Peggy Carter more times than I could ever count. Because - because he’d never feel the same way, and even if he does, his biological clock is finally fucking running out, and we’d only have like, thirty years, and I’d have to live _ knowing _ what it was like to have him for the rest of my _ goddamn _supersoldier life, which is so, so much worse than imagining, because it’s a tangible memory instead of some schoolboy fantasy.”

They’ve both stopped at this point. These are uncharted waters for the two of them - they each lost their best friend, and they’ve only just started to learn how to be that for each other, and it’s this huge, long battle upstream. Sam thinks they might be the salmon lost along the way, but he really, really hopes that they aren’t.

“Look,” Sam inhales, and every bone in his body is unsure of what he’s about to say. “I know it’s not the same but… ever since Steve went and decided to have a life, we’ve become each other’s closest friend, and it’s weird, and we won’t be the same as him for… obvious reasons but, I think I’m with you till the end of the line whether I like it or not because we’re all we’ve got.”

“God I hope not,” Bucky’s shoulders still have that weight on them, but his head’s up, and he’s smiling now.

“Yeah man, me neither.”

**Author's Note:**

> russo brothers said FUCK the end of the line huh


End file.
